Karl Budge is the Tournament Director for one of New Zealand’s premier annual sporting events – the ASB Classic Men’s and Women’s international tennis tournaments. The events are beamed to 1.25 million people each year in New Zealand, more than 200 million homes around the world and attended by almost 60,000 people annually.

Budge has worked in senior roles in elite tennis for the past 12 years, in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, China and Turkey. He has worked on some of the biggest sporting events in the world including the Australian Open, Wimbledon and as part of both the ATP (Men’s Tour) and the WTA (Women’s Tour) where he currently sits as a board member representing all tournaments in the Asia Pacific region.

Having worked with some of the biggest brands in the world, signing more than $80million in sponsorship revenues, Budge has a detailed understanding of brands and how best to align them with consumers.

In the past three years since taking over the leadership of New Zealand’s summer of tennis, the events have gone through a complete re-brand, signed record amounts of new commercial partnerships, had a 300% increase in net profit, 250% increase in ticket sales and 200% increase in media value generated.

Karl will share his insights in to what has led to the rapid growth of the events, their engagement with new audiences and how their partnerships have grown, both in terms of investment levels and how they interact with the event fans.